Echoes from the past: synaesthetic colour associations reflect childhood gender stereotypes

Abstract

Grapheme–colour synaesthesia is a neurological phenomenon in which linguistic symbols evoke consistent colour sensations. Synaesthesia is believed to be influenced by both genetic and environmental factors, but how these factors interact to create specific associations in specific individuals is poorly understood. In this paper, we show that a grapheme–colour association in adult synaesthetes can be traced to a particular environmental effect at a particular moment in childhood. We propose a model in which specific grapheme–colour associations are ‘locked in’ during development in children predisposed to become synaesthetes, whereas grapheme–colour associations remain flexible in non-synaesthetes. We exploit Western gender–colour stereotypes to test our model: we found that young girls in general tend to associate their first initial with the colour pink. Consistent with our model, adult female synaesthetes are influenced by their childhood environment: they associate their first initial with pink. Adult female non-synaesthetes do not show this bias. Instead, in our study, non-synaesthetes tended to associate their first initial with their current favourite colour. The results thus support the ‘locking in’ model of synaesthesia, suggesting that synaesthetic associations can be used as a ‘time capsule’, revealing childhood influences on adult linguistic associations. Grapheme–colour synaesthesia may thus offer an extraordinary opportunity to study linguistic development. This article is part of a discussion meeting issue ‘Bridging senses: novel insights from synaesthesia’.

Distinct colours in the ‘synaesthetic colour palette’

“…This would increase our understanding of the mechanisms underlying synaesthesia; logically, the differences between synaesthetic and non-synaesthetic colour patterns are indicative of influences on colour concurrents that are unique to synaesthetes. In a contemporaneous publication [25], we showed how a particular grapheme-colour association present in adult synaesthetes, but not present in non-synaesthete colour associations, could be traced to a particular environmental effect in early childhood (a preference for the colour 'pink' in young girls). Previous literature has supported relative over-representation of influences related to learning processes taking place during the development of graphemecolour synaesthesia in early childhood [13,57,58].…”

“…'D is for dog'), has a prototypical colour association (dogs are brown), this can influence the colour of that letter (D is brown). Furthermore, the first letter of the synaesthete's language is associated with red in many of the world's languages, for both synaesthetes and nonsynaesthetes ( [23,25], but see [26]). Finally, the phonetic properties of letters influence colour associations in both synaesthetes and non-synaesthetes [27][28][29][30][31][32][33][34]; for example, 'lower' or 'back' acoustic vowel characteristics (e.g.…”

Bridging senses: novel insights from synaesthesia

“…The study by Root et al [12] delves further to ask how specific grapheme-colour associations arise during development, taking advantage of gender-colour stereotypes that are prominent in Western cultures. They report that, both in Dutch-and English-speaking samples, adult females with synaesthesia associate the first initial of their name with the colour pink more often than expected by chance, while those without synaesthesia associate this instead with their current favourite colour.…”

“…They report that, both in Dutch-and English-speaking samples, adult females with synaesthesia associate the first initial of their name with the colour pink more often than expected by chance, while those without synaesthesia associate this instead with their current favourite colour. The authors propose a model in which environmental factors evoke associations between graphemes and colours in all people (children and adults; synaesthetes and non-synaesthetes), but that children with a synaesthetic predisposition 'lock in' particular associations during development, yielding the stable associations in adulthood that are hallmarks of the condition [12]. In a related paper, Rouw & Root [13] note that while synaesthetes and non-synaesthetes may show similar biases in the specific letter-colour associations that they report, it has not previously been determined whether the colours themselves differ in their properties.…”

“…Together, these four articles [10][11][12][13] provide a snapshot of how investigations of grapheme-colour (and related forms of ) synaesthesia are being used to address deep-seated questions about cognitive development, language acquisition, and the interplay of genes and environment in our learning processes.…”